


The Roots of Legends

by TheNerveToServe



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Fanon Backstory, Gen, More characters should be coming, Vin Tanner - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNerveToServe/pseuds/TheNerveToServe
Summary: All legends start somewhere--they do not simply pop out of the ground fully-formed. Every person has a story. Populated by such colorful characters, the residents of Four Corners might have more interesting histories then the average citizen. That is for the reader to judge.Second Backstory: Mary Travis





	1. Vin Tanner

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This is the Vin Tanner backstory I use on my Tumblr RP account. One of the few flaws of Magnificent 7, if one is a History major, is that there are no real unifying elements as to a timeline. Mary’s clothes are closest to fashion plates from 1869, doing the math off dialogue that Nathan gives in “Penance” would imply that it is 1865, and yet Tascosa, Texas was not even built until 1876. In short, it is a mess and I fully embrace the “Nebulous Post-Civil War Era” definition. I just settled on 1868 as a rough planning number so that I could plot events out.  
> This is, I hope, the first of many backstories that I will be writing for each of the main characters. I have quite a few fanfictions planned, though unsure if they will ever see the light of day, and these are the backstories I would use for my Fanon interpretations of the universe. As stated, these are my fanon interpretations. Aside from facts explicitly stated in the episodes, pretty much everything here is my creation.  
> I do not own the basic characters or frameworks as they belong to MGM and others. Thank you for reading. Let me know if you enjoy it!

Vin was born in 1843 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Just before he turned five, his mother Daniella decided to move to Houston, Texas with him. On the boat trip from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas she caught the putrid fever along with quite a few other people. It was a miracle Vin himself did not come down with the highly contagious disease. After her death, a German immigrant named Katrina Schmidt took him in. The elderly woman and her husband were moving to Galveston to join their daughter but Mr. Schmidt also succumbed to the fever.

Vin lived with the Schmidts’ until he was seven. The younger generation resented having another mouth to feed but the elder Mrs. Schmidt insisted on him staying. She made sure he was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, and took pains to see to the orphan’s moral education. When she died, he learned the younger Schmidts’ were planning to send him to a near-by mission so they would be free of him.

He ran away rather than go to the mission, knowing that orphans were treated poorly there. Captain Lawrence Nichols of the semi-legal cargo steamer _The Countess Elena_ quickly snagged the seven-year-old. Captain Nichols needed a new cabin boy and did not want to front the money required to hire an adult. After kidnapping Vin, Nichols convinced the orphan that he had saved his life, so Vin owed him that much. Vin’s sense of honor was already strong and he could not _quite_ argue with the Captain so he agreed to stay on until the debt was paid.

The ship’s usual route was from Galveston to New Orleans so Vin spent a large amount of time in both cities. On the less-legal side of things, they routinely took unscheduled trips down to Veracruz, Mexico. He stayed with the _Countess Elena_ until he was twelve. The ship ran aground and sank off the coast of Texas during a storm. Vin survived and decided that was his chance to run. He headed deeper into Texas. It was during this time that he came to live with several Native American tribes, including the Comanche and the Kiowa. The friends he made here where his first taste of actual ‘family’ and he absorbed it like a sponge, desperate for anything steady after his life on the ship.

This was where he learned how to track and how to shoot, along with the knowledge that the aim and quality of his shot was more important than how fast he could shoot. Living with the Comanche, he also learned more about horses then he would learn at any other time in his life. Though he always subtly implies that it happened later in his life, he was already taking up buffalo hunter by the time he was fourteen.

His semi-nomadic life-style ended, partially by his own choice, when he was 18. The army was moving in on the Tribes and forcing some of them to reservations—one forced move resulted in a personal blow to Vin. One of his best friends, the man who had taught him nearly everything he knew about tracking and hunting, was killed. This caused Vin to re-examine his life and he decided that the buffalo hunting was, in part, creating the very environment that forced his friends off of their lands and onto the reservations. He vowed to stop buffalo hunting but, knowing what most would say, he generally claims there “wasn’t much left to hunt”.

This change of heart meant he needed a new job. One came easily—The Civil War had just begun. After some thought, though he was going in mostly for the pay, the Union came closer to what he believed in.  He headed East, to make sure he would get into a Federal regiment that was fighting the Confederacy, instead of the Indian Wars, and signed on with the 2nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

Though the war would last until 1865, Vin’s part in it ended in October 1862. His company’s commanding officer Captain Carmalt decided that the young private was a half-blood Native due to his mannerisms and his beliefs. Carmalt’s hatred against a vast network of peoples honed in on the lone nineteen-year-old and he made Vin’s life miserable. A few other men in the company shared the Captain’s views and went along with him. Carmalt was always on the lookout for a chance to get rid of the ‘half-breed’, and finally got his chance in the early days of October, 1862. After the Battle of Corinth, he purposely gave Vin orders regarding several Confederate prisoners that would have amounted to murder for the men. Vin refused to follow them, willfully disobeying his commanding officer. Carmalt jumped on it, charged Vin with insubordination and his like-minded friends threw in unfounded claims of cowardice. In move that was unpopular with the rest of the company, Vin was publicly shamed and drummed out of the army.

Stubborn, proud, and stinging from the unjust humiliation, Vin decided he did not need the army, and headed back to Texas just before he turned 20. By now, the West was growing fast enough to attract the bad apples _and_ those that wanted to drag them in. Bounty hunting proved to be something he had a knack for, and lucrative to boot.

Unfortunately, it also got him into a heap of legal trouble of his own. When he was twenty-two, he went after a bank-robber named Eli Joe who was worth two hundred dollars. By now, the young bounty hunter reputation was growing and he had earned the nickname “Bloodhound” due to the inability to shake him once he got on someone’s trail. Eli was determined to try though. He murdered a farmer named Jessie Kincade outside of Tascosa, Texas and set Vin up. Vin mistook Kincade’s body for Eli Joe’s body and, as it was a “dead or alive” bounty, he brought the body in.

In Tascosa, he was accused of murdering Kincade and quickly locked up. He narrowly avoided his own lynching but decided that that was close enough for his tastes. Before they could hang him properly, he escaped and fled from Texas. This earned him his own bounty of five hundred dollars.

For three years he ran, heading further west and keeping his head down. Eli Joe fell off the face of the Earth, leaving Vin with only vague hopes of catching the murderer and dragging him back to Texas in a bid to clear his own name.

He finally reached Four Corners a few months shy of twenty-five. Half-starved and desperate, he took a job at Virgil Watson’s hardware store, earning five dollars a week. This lasted about a week until he decided he could not stand by and watch Nathan be lynched. Despite Virgil’s threats to fire him, Vin swapped his apron and broom for a Winchester rifle and his hat—joining forces for the first time with Chris Larabee. Their actions caught the attention of two men from a Seminole village, who were seeking aid against Colonel Anderson and his renegade Confederate army.

Vin helped Chris and Nathan gather four other men to the cause and went off to defend the village. After the battle, he intended to re-focus his efforts on tracking down Eli Joe and clearing his name but fate intervened. Vin agreed to Judge Travis’s request to be one of the seven men who stayed on and defended Four Corners for a month until the judge could arrange something more permanent …and then they became the permanent solution for both the town and the surrounding territory.


	2. Mary Travis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All legends start somewhere--they do not simply pop out of the ground fully-formed. Every person has a story. Populated by such colorful characters, the residents of Four Corners might have more interesting histories then the average citizen. That is for the reader to judge.
> 
> Second Backstory: Mary Travis

 

**Author’s Note:** This is the Mary Travis backstory I use on my Tumblr RP account. One of the few flaws of _Magnificent 7_ , if one is a History major, is that there are no real unifying elements as to a timeline. Mary’s clothes are closest to fashion plates from 1869, doing the math off dialogue that Nathan gives in “Penance” would imply that it is 1865, and yet Tascosa, Texas was not even built until 1876. In short, it is a mess and I fully embrace the “Nebulous Post-Civil War Era” definition. I just settled on 1868 as a rough planning number so that I could plot events out.

This is, I hope, the first of many backstories that I will be writing for each of the main characters. I have quite a few fanfictions planned, though unsure if they will ever see the light of day, and these are the backstories I would use for my Fanon interpretations of the universe. As stated, these are my **_fanon interpretations_**. Aside from facts explicitly stated in the episodes, pretty much everything here is my creation.

I do not own the basic characters or frameworks as they belong to MGM and others. Thank you for reading. Let me know if you enjoy it!

**Mary Travis**

Mary Alrik was born in 1837 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Reverend Paul Alrik and his wife Caroline.  She was the second child to bless the couple—two years earlier her brother Matthew had been born. In 1839, Reverend Alrik moved his family to the new village of Clarion, Pennsylvania. He was convinced that the country would be healthier for his family then the polluted city.  They were among the first settlers in the village, and her father continued his work as a Lutheran minister.

Mary’s childhood was quiet and comfortable. Her parents were forward thinking, particularly where their daughter was concerned and personally oversaw the education of both their children. They taught Mary with the same curriculum as her brother and encouraged her to pursue her interests in writing and politics. This granted her more freedom then some neighbors thought proper.

Mary turned 18 in 1855. That was the same year that Elmira College in Elmira, New York opened its doors as a female-only college. They were also the only institution to award degrees that were comparable to the ones offered by male-only institutes. Mary was in among the first class of students.

She thrived in the environment and soon became known for her sharply written articles and her passionate opinions. From the very earliest, she spoke boldly in favor of women gaining the vote, and the abolition of slavery.  

During her four years in school, she met a young journalist named Steven Travis and his best friend Gerard Whitman. While both men courted her, Steven won her heart. As soon as she graduated in 1859, the couple were married.

At 22 years old, Mary Alrik was now Mary Travis. The couple settled in Elmira and opened the _Clarion News_ , the name inspired by her hometown.  As the couple began their married life, war was rumbling up and down the East Coast. By 1862, the Civil War is in full swing and Steven became a war correspondent. He left the _Clarion_ in Mary’s hands and sent information to both the larger newspapers in New York, and his own, impartial publication.  

Early the same year, before Steven left home, a son was born to the couple. They baptized him William Lewis Travis but affectionately referred to him as “Billy”.

By 1864, Steven, Mary, and the _Clarion_ were all running into trouble with the United States government. Dedicated to the truth, Steven sent factual reports back from the front lines. While the larger papers edited and sanitized them, Mary did not. In a war rife with cover-ups, the _Clarion_ became borderline treasonous.

Steven caused enough commotion that he was relieved from duty by mid-1864 and sent home. There was no crime he could be openly accused of but his pen had become too dangerous. When Steven arrived home in September, he learned that his wife was investigating the Confederacy prisoner of war camp that had opened near the town. He joined her and soon the _Clarion_ was publishing scathing articles about the conditions of the camp, adopting the prisoner’s name of “Hellmira” to describe it.

Their articles brought them into conflict with the government again. They received warnings to stop publishing but they ignored them. In March 1865, the _Clarion News_ burnt down.  While it was listed as an accident, the Travis’s suspected foul play.

Fed up with the east, Steven proposed that they head west. His parents lived in California, where his father was a federal circuit judge. Steven convinced Mary that they could restart the _Clarion News_ in the frontier, and they could publish freely as well.

While the initial plan was to join his family in California, they passed through Four Corners on the way and fell in love with the tiny town. While it was just a dot on the map and a few worn-down buildings, Mary and Steven saw the potential in it. This was the kind of town where news was born.

They quickly bought a plot of land and built a home on it. Once that was settled, they found property in town and re-opened their paper. By late 1865, they were back in business.

For a blissful fifteen months, everything went right. Then Steven noticed something peculiar about the land deeds and began investigating. While he told Mary what he was looking into, he did not get a chance to tell her anything else. February 1867 saw Steven murdered during a home robbery gone wrong. It was a sheer miracle Billy was not killed with his father as they were home together while Mary visited neighbors.

Shaken by the murder of her husband, Mary moved herself and Billy into town. Billy did not recover from his father’s death. Rather, he was constantly plagued by nightmares. He kept telling his mother that the Devil was in town and meant to kill them. Worried for his mental health, she sent him to live with Steven’s parents.

Now alone in Four Corners, Mary clung to her newspaper as the rest of the town started falling apart around her. A desperate telegram to her father-in-law brought Orrin in to investigate. Shortly afterwards, he hired seven men to bring order to the crime-ridden territory. While she was doubtful of them at first, and clashed regularly with their leader Chris Larabee, they soon earned her respect if not full affection.  

All hostilities, even the bitterest, ended when the Seven helped her uncover the truth of her husband’s murder, and saved Billy’s life. After that, she started working with them and soon could not imagine the town without their presence in it.


End file.
